I crave an elegy that mourns all things,

But, above all, the wasteful lie, the cost,

The silliness of uncreative days,

The sibilant illusions of the ‘lost’.

 

The panic act, the dead man’s scream, the dull

Unvirile ache that cannot add to truth,

The mauvais quart d’heure, the unsuccessful kiss,

The abrupt and pointless banishment of youth.

 

Expand these, make from them now a vasty sea

Such as no ship will ride, whose surf will shriek

Along dead shores by night, soon to invade

The yielding glebe, the stiff presumptuous peak.

 

Say then, should such a pain go unrecorded?

O must we grease the dancefloor to the grave?

Song can alone assail the ultimate horror,

Devise that final elegy we crave.